


The Less I Know the Better

by UmbreonGurl



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, au in which byleth is a literal cryptid, fe3h spoilers, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25695685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbreonGurl/pseuds/UmbreonGurl
Summary: “Rhea, what did you do to my daughter?” he wants to ask.But if Jeralt were being perfectly honest, he’s not sure that he wants to know the answer.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58
Collections: Calamity's Advent





	The Less I Know the Better

Jeralt knows something is wrong with his daughter the moment he gets his hands on her and she feels ice cold.

If he hadn’t felt the slow rise and fall of her chest under the blankets she is swaddled in, he would have sworn she was dead. The pointed ears only add to the strangeness of it all.

Goddess, he wishes Sitri were still here. She was always so much better at handling situations like these, always calm, easygoing, and serene. But Sitri is gone, and her daughter, his daughter,  _ their _ daughter—she needs him. 

He names her Byleth. It’s one of the names he and Sitri had talked about what feels like just moments ago. 

_ “We’ll decide when the baby comes,” she had said. “We’ll know which name is the right one when we meet them. I think they feel like a Byleth, but we’ll see.” _

He first suspects Rhea is involved when she doesn’t let him see Sitri’s body. He doesn’t get to see her face one last time, to say one last goodbye, or to even introduce her to their daughter.

Not even at the funeral—which is so rushed that personally, to him, calling it a funeral feels like an insult. Sitri deserved better than this, better than an unmarked grave in a corner of the gilded cage she had never been allowed to leave.

Something is rotten in Garreg Mach Monastery. The way Rhea’s eyes follow the bundle in his arms a little too closely, the way her smile is a little too wide— something about it isn’t right.  _ Nothing _ about this situation is right.

So he leaves.

And somehow, even after faking their deaths and leaving everything behind, he feels like this is only the beginning of his troubles.

He’s proven right when he takes Byleth to a doctor and he is informed that his daughter has no heartbeat. 

_ “Rhea, what did you do to my daughter?”  _ he wants to ask.

But if Jeralt were being perfectly honest, he’s not sure that he wants to know the answer.

* * *

He picks back up mercenary life rather easily, all things considered.

It starts with odd jobs, mostly, before he picks up a few guys, and slowly but surely, he starts to form a proper company again.

Byleth takes to it rather well, given everything, riding along on his back. She doesn’t cry.

She doesn’t cry, that is, until she does, and Jeralt doesn’t know what to do about it.

He sits down at the counter and waves over a barmaid for some ale—because good  _ goddess _ could he use some right now.

He sips at it slowly and barely even glances up when another man takes a seat next to him.

“Your kid keep you up all night?” he says, with a knowing smile and a glance towards the bundle on his back— who luckily, was currently fast asleep.

“Yeah,” confirms Jeralt. “For such a tiny thing, she’s got a real set of lungs.”

“Man, I do  _ not _ miss those days,” says the other man. “When mine was teething, I had to leave some of her dolls out in the snow. She wouldn't stop crying until I’d grab ‘em from outside and let her chew on ‘em. I was lucky it was the wintertime, or I’d have been screwed. Without ‘em she cried all day and all night.”

“That’s… a good idea, actually,” says Jeralt. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to try it sometime.”

“You won’t regret it. It works like magic.” The man pauses, briefly. “She your first?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Jeralt. Something about the question makes his ale turn sour, despite its innocent intentions.

He finishes up and tells the barkeep to put it on his tab. (They are both well aware it won’t be paid anytime soon, but neither mentions it.)

He picks up a cloth doll from a merchant the next morning.

The morning after that, it’s in pieces.

Turns out most teething tricks don’t work very well when your child has sharp teeth.

Damn.

* * *

Byleth learning to walk is simultaneously the best and worst thing that has ever happened to Jeralt.

It’s becoming harder and harder to keep her constantly at his back, and it’s not long after she starts to walk that she takes off running. It takes everything in him not to just tie a rope around her waist and never let it go. (Even if he did, it likely wouldn’t last long— she’d chew right through it.)

She’s curious, and goddess, the way her eyes seem to just light up when she sees something that interests her (just the way her mother used to), it makes Jeralt smile every time.

Jeralt has never been so grateful that Byleth is not much of a talker. For the most part, unless she is distracted by something shiny or a pretty bird or a bug, she is perfectly content to stay beside him.

Even still, he can’t help worrying.

It’s becoming more and more obvious with every passing day that his daughter is different. He sees the way black scales creep up her cheeks when she’s frustrated, he watches the way her nails grow unusually sharp, and he notices the way she’s able to navigate around in the dark as easily as if it were midday.

He doesn’t know a lot about kids, but he knows enough to know that stuff like that isn’t normal. And while he may not care, others are not always so forgiving. 

He has to kick three men out of the company by the time Byleth is four.

“Changeling,” said one. “The captain’s kid is a demon. It’s just biding its time to kill us all, and he doesn’t see it.”

“They usually leave kids like that to the wolves,” said another. “Don’t know why he didn’t. He should have.”

“Demon,” said the third. “That’s not a child, that’s a demon.”

His daughter may have no heartbeat, but the real demon here is not her. It was never her.

_ “Rhea, what did you do to my daughter?”  _ he wonders.

The more time that passes, the more Jeralt suspects that he definitely won’t like the answer.

* * *

He starts teaching her how to use a knife when she is seven.

He knows that’s a bit young, but he doesn’t have time to wait. Byleth was born with a target on her back, painted on her very skin, deep in her bones, in the blood that somehow runs through her veins despite her unbeating heart.

Byleth’s blood is blue, dark and rich like ink. It’s something he discovers when she accidentally slices herself during training one day and he freezes at the sight of it.

Byleth looks at her hand, but she does not cry. She does not scream. She merely holds her hand out at him, seemingly not caring about the blood dripping onto the ground below.

“Father, I cut myself,” she says. “I’m bleeding.”

Jeralt quickly snaps out of it and grabs a scrap of cloth to clean it up.

“Yes,” he agrees. “You are. Let’s fix that, shall we?”

He gently ties the cloth around her hand, and she stares up at him the whole time.

“Father,” she says, eventually, as she stares at the stain growing on the cloth tied around her hand.

“Yes, By?” he responds. 

“Why is my blood a different color than yours?”

He sighs. The older she gets, the more she herself has started to catch onto the fact that she isn't normal. Byleth does not talk much, but she is observant. She is always watching, always learning.

“I don’t know, By,” he answers. “I don’t know.”

He places a hand on her head and ruffles her hair. 

“As much as you may think your old man is smart, I still don’t know everything.”

“Okay,” she responds. She’s silent for a minute before she speaks up again.

“Father?” she asks.

“Yes, By?” 

“Can we have fish for dinner again?”

He laughs. “Only if you help me catch it.”

“Okay.”

* * *

Byleth quickly moves on from knives to swords, and she takes to swordplay like a fish to water. 

Jeralt is grateful for it. He knows that despite his best efforts, he can’t keep his eyes on her at all times. And even when he  _ can, _ accidents do happen.

Unfortunately, all it takes is just one to ruin everything.

They are out hunting for the night’s dinner when he sees the glimmer of the arrow headed right towards Byleth.

_ Bandits. _

“By, get down!” he yells, futilely reaching out towards her. He’s too far away to tackle her down himself. 

She turns her head towards him, and starts to move, but she is too slow. And so was he. By the time he saw the arrow, it was already too late.

The arrow hits its target, and for a split second, Jeralt swears the world freezes. 

_ No. Oh Goddess, please no. Please, please no. Sitri was bad enough, please, not Byleth too. _

Byleth falls to the ground with a thump, and Jeralt just barely ducks out of the way of another arrow— this time, one intended for him.

Byleth’s fingers twitch. Tendrils of black quickly make their way up her limbs, scales climb up her cheeks, and in a flash of energy, a large, grotesque beast forms where his daughter was moments ago. 

It is a patchwork of bones and flesh, large curved horns lining its head like a crown. It opens up its jagged-toothed mouth and lets out a deafening screech. 

Jeralt would swear his heart had stopped if he were not able to hear it racing in his ears.

He doesn’t even have time to think before the beast takes off after the bandits, who have by now made the wise decision to run. (He would too, in their place.)

Against his better judgement, he follows behind. 

He arrives to a clearing covered in bodies, and the beast turns its head back to look at him.

On the side of its large, bony head, Jeralt can see its eyes. They are large and blue— just like the ones that always follow his every move.

“Fa...ther…” comes a voice he knows so well, garbled and distorted, low and booming. “It hurtssss...”

His breath catches in his throat, and yet again, that ever so familiar question echoes in his mind.

_ “Rhea, what did you do to my daughter?” _

He is terrified of the answer. 

* * *

Jeralt decides it’s no longer safe to be in such a large group, so he hands over the reins to the company and sets off for the independent mercenary life once again.

It doesn’t pay quite as well, and the jobs aren’t quite as easy to come by, but he’s been on the road for a long time now. He’s had plenty of time to make plenty of connections, and he’s more than able to get by. 

They continue on as normal—at least, as normal as things  _ can _ be, given the circumstances.

Neither of them speak of what happened in the woods that day.

If he closes his eyes, he can still feel Byleth convulsing in his arms, twitching and screaming. 

Jeralt does not fancy himself to be a brave man, but he can count on one hand the times he remembers having been truly, utterly terrified.

The first was when Sitri left with Rhea for Byleth’s birth. The second was during the incident in the woods.

Byleth has been quieter than usual, lately. (And when she never says much in the first place, that’s saying something.)

They are sitting around the campfire one night when she finally decides to broach the topic.

“Back then,” she says, her gaze not leaving the flames. “Were they right?”

Jeralt adds more wood to the fire and hums. “About what?”

“About me being a demon,” she clarifies. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head and taking a seat next to her on the log they’re using as a makeshift bench. “Of course not.”

She looks up at him, big, blue eyes wide.

“Then what am I, Father?”

Jeralt may not know everything, but he at the very least knows one thing for sure.

“You’re my daughter,” he says. “And no matter what happens, you’ll always be my daughter.”

“Always?” she asks.

“Always.” 

* * *

They stay in Morfis for a while. It’s a place full of mysteries, and Jeralt can confidently say it’s a hell of a lot different than what he’s used to.

He can’t say that he enjoys having sand in everything, but at the very least, they are not in Fódlan. That fact alone makes him far more tolerant of the desert’s more unpleasant surprises, like finding a rattlesnake in his boot occasionally. (He would  _ far _ rather find a rattlesnake in his boot than a clergyman around every corner.)

The best part about the whole thing is that, for the most part, the locals are too busy with their noses in books to so much as spare a second glance in their direction. City of scholars indeed.

Byleth takes to the desert better than he would have ever expected. The heat doesn’t seem to bother her in the least. If anything, she  _ thrives _ in it. 

It’s almost the exact opposite of what had happened when they spent a winter in Faerghus, now that he thinks of it.

Byleth had never done well in chilly places, and in the winter cold of Faerghus, she was practically dead on her feet. Jeralt hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He’d simply added it to the list of his daughter’s quirks. 

Since coming to Morfis, that list has only grown.

It’s not uncommon for Byleth to take naps in the afternoon when the sun is at its brightest.

When she had first started doing it, he was worried. He knows what happens to people with fair skin in the desert sun if they’re not careful (He’d gotten a bit sunburned himself recently, and  _ oh man, _ was it not fun.)

Byleth doesn’t get sunburned. She doesn’t even get so much as a tan. It’s unnatural.

An old Morfis legend claims that the only people who don’t tan under the sun’s light are the dead or the spirits who wander the desert sands at night.

Byleth isn’t dead, and she’s no spirit. He knows that much.

But what  _ exactly _ his daughter was made to be, he’s still figuring out.

_ “Rhea, what did you do to my daughter?” he ponders. _

The only answer he receives is the howling of the wind. Perhaps it’s better that way.

* * *

When they return back to Fódlan, he starts putting together a company again. This time, though, it is far smaller, and every single man and woman in it is vetted far more thoroughly.

If someone were to make so much as a passing comment towards his daughter, they’d be gone the next day.

For the most part, it works rather well, and considering the rather sizable sum he pays everyone to do their work and keep their mouths shut, he’s not that worried about loyalty. (Especially when considering the fact that many of his men grow to respect his daughter almost as much as they do himself.)

Byleth has a knack for tactics and leadership, despite not being all that talkative. She’s smart, and a huge bookworm, and  _ goddess,  _ sometimes she reminds Jeralt so much of her mother that he almost wants to cry.

She picks up nicknames rather often over the years. One of the more well used ones is “Ashen Demon.”

This time, it is not for the ears, for the scales, for the claws, but for her swordsmanship.

“Because it’d take an angel to save you if you‘re on the opposite side of the battlefield,” explains one man. “She’s a force to be reckoned with, a demon in combat.”

He’s right.

Jeralt almost doesn’t register how much she’s grown until she beats him in a spar.

She’s no longer the baby that spent all day on his back, no longer the curious toddler who chewed on anything and everything—no, his little girl is not a little girl anymore.

He doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

He’s proud, because he taught her well. He’s glad, because she’s able to protect herself. He’s terrified, because he can’t keep her hidden away from the world.

Byleth is stubborn, and it’s one of the few things that Jeralt honestly believes she got from him.

She won’t be happy living in his shadow forever. He’s seen the way her eyes light up when she commands troops, he’s seen the way she takes charge as if she was born for it, and he’s seen the way she can read the battlefield like a book.

Things have gone well for a long time. And if he’s learned anything over the years, it’s that all good things come to an end eventually. 

The morning Byleth comes to the table and asks him about a war in her dreams, he knows it’s the day that end has come.

He’s proven right when they’re approached by three students in uniforms he would have rather never seen again.

He should have known staying at an inn this close to Garreg Mach was a horrible idea.

It’s too late now.

* * *

Jeralt knows from the moment he sees those uniforms that these aren’t just any students—he can immediately tell by the capes they wear that they’re house leaders. 

What he can’t figure out, though, is why the hell they’re out here alone. 

He almost wants to scoff when he’s told their professor ran off. No, that’s  _ far _ too convenient. Someone clearly wanted these kids gone. But as to who, and _ why, _ he’s not sure. 

He doesn’t have time to analyze it. He sends off one of his men to warn the others and prepare for the oncoming attack.

By the time he turns back to talk to Byleth, she has seemingly already taken command of the students.

She glances up in his direction when he approaches.

“I’m going to go get tacked up,” he says. “You good to handle the kids?”   


He ignores the offended “hey!” from the Golden Deer boy, and quickly makes his way towards the stables after Byleth confirms she has the little officers under control.

He tacks up his horse quickly. There’s no time to waste. It’s extremely lucky that he’d had his horse mostly tacked up already, because by the time he rides out, the battle has already begun.

It’s chaotic, but nothing Jeralt can’t handle. No, he can definitely handle this. He is no stranger to battle, and these bandits are anything but well-trained.

Byleth, ever the budding tactician, seems to take advantage of this fact to let the kids get a little bit of real-world battle experience, and from what he can tell, it’s sorely needed. Jeralt is not an expert in every weapon, but it’s clear to him these kids need some work. 

The Blue Lions boy is clumsy with his lance, relying too much on brute strength.

The Golden Deer kid is far too cautious, and he is doing far too much thinking and not nearly enough acting.

The girl from the Black Eagles is well trained as far as her weapon forms go, but she is clearly not used to the chaos of a real battlefield and isn’t paying  _ nearly _ enough attention to her surroundings as she should be. 

Unfortunately, it’s Byleth who ends up paying the price for it.

The bandit leader rushes the Black Eagles girl, and just as an axe is about to slash her wide open, Byleth jumps in front of her. The axe slams into her back and in two seconds flat, all hell breaks loose.

There’s several screams (one of which he’s pretty sure is his own) and with a loud roar, the beast that haunts his nightmares is back. With it returns that accursed question once more.

_ “Rhea, what did you do to my daughter?”  _

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this piece for the Calamity's Advent zine, a horror and angst themed Fire Emblem zine! You can find a link to the zine on the zine server's twitter, @InvinicibleZine! Please check it out, all the pieces are wonderful!


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